FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

This story isn't too good. Got some action here though.

Chapter 2

Morning. Danny cracked his eyes open, pushing himself to get up and gather clothes to take a shower. Upon exiting his room, he was met by his gray fox roommate.

"Jackal's in the shower" Skit informed him from behind the kitchen counter, eyes looking bloodshot, 'Good morning, cat thing.'

"It's Danny," he reminded Skit of his name, "What time is it?" He groaned as he set his clothes down on the coffee table, taking a seat on the couch.

"10 something," Skit struggled to remember where the clock was, finding one on the microwave, "Quarter past... You want some coffee?"

"Never had it before," Danny looked over.

"I'll get you some when it's done... And fill yours with cream and sugar since you're all virgin and shit."

Danny spend the next few minutes staring into the TV, the bland news not helping him wake up. He was snapped back into reality by Skit's setting down of coffee in front of him.

"Try it," He waited to see Danny start drinking, a smirk on his face. Still half asleep and half concerned, he took one sip. His face twisted into a response to the taste, and one of his eyes twitched.

"Priceless," Skit mumbled to himself, "What do you think?"

"It's... ok..." Danny stayed modest.

"Oh, I lied," Skit got up, "I gave you the strongest stuff." he came back holding a jar of sugar and a spoon. "My team leader did that to me on my first morning."

Danny quickly poured some. Skit tried a different conversation...

"You're friends with the other one?"

Danny nodded as he took a sip, screwing up his face again, pouring in more sugar as he answered, "Over two years."

"How'd you two meet?"

"He was coming out of a court surrounded by some guys with suits. I was hanging with some skater friends I knew, but I kinda got caught back... So, I saw Mike coming down these steps, and he just reaches over the side of the rail while these suits are talking to him, and just pulls out a skateboard from behind the bushes and just skates away from the guys, they start running after him, and he goes straight for me and we just kind of looked at each other... Then I led him to the rest of the guys that were up ahead. Later in the day, we started talking to each other... And... yeah."

"Court? Heh, He looks like the kind of punk that would deal with legal stuff all the time."

"I think he said it was because he was a witness or something. But anyway, he was also the only reason I joined the tower."

"You guys got a bond there, then."

"And it's like we've been forced together ever since. I got the same classes as he did in the academy, the same dorm room, I even got assigned here with him. I liked that for school, because he's actually really smart and he'd help me with stuff."

"You're gonna be some dynamic duo one day," Skit joked, starting to chug his coffee. He then announced he was hungry and was getting out cereal. Then brought both of them bowls of cereal and tried to continue the conversation... until they heard the door to the bathroom open. A few seconds after that, Skit lifted his head up, curiously, sniffing the air. He then got a strange look on his face.

"I smell... Oranges... no... Some kind of fruit..." He said between sniffs.

"That's me," Mike's voice. Both turned to see him standing in the doorway, drying himself off with a towel, "Dragon-fruit soap. I love it."

"Right..." Skit seemed un-moved, "Good to know that our rookies smell nice."

After vigorously rubbing his legs with a towel, he threw it behind him, back into the bathroom, and started to walk to the door to his room, "I forgot to get clothes..." However, the box of cereal on the counter caught his attention, "First, though, I'm hungry."

"I like that kid," Skit mumbled to Danny, "Shameless."

Mike situated himself next to Skit, naked, with his own bowl of cereal.

"So, you like your room so far?" Skit asked him as he sat down, "Looking forward to any renovation?"

"It's perfectly fine," Mike answered, shoveling sugary flakes into his mouth.

"You don't even want a curtain to divide you off like we have?" Skit pried at him.

"Nah," Mike answered with his mouth full, "Danny and I don't need that." Skit turned to Danny for a second, who smiled. Then turned back to Mike, "We're really close... After having the same room in a dorm for two years... Like, I could probably stab Danny like 20 times and he'd probably forgive me... And we'd still be friends."

"That's a bit too far, Mike," Danny raised one eyebrow, confusingly.

"Ok, maybe not, but we can at least jack-off in front of each other," He corrected with an actual example, "I did that this morning."

"I was asleep," Danny mumbled just to add that part in.

"You really have no shame, do you?" Skit seemed amazed by how off beat this new Jackal rookie was.

"I'm weird. Don't care too much what people think." He was almost finished with the cereal, so he paused to chug the milk and then set the bowl down, "I'll do whatever the fuck. People can call me an attention whore, or they can call me weird... I'm Mike Gantroy, just me."

"The one thing he can't do is lie," Danny brought up, "That kills him."

"Kinda true," Mike confirmed, rambling on a bit, "Even if it's rude or whatever, I'll be honest. Oh, and Danny, you can take a shower now."

"Right!" Danny took his clothes and got up, "And don't touch my coffee!"

Skit took over Danny's space as he entered the bathroom.

"You gonna put clothes on?"

"I dunno," Mike shrugged, "It's warm in here, anyway."

"Let me try again," Skit tried something he hadn't thought of before, speaking more forcefully to the new kid, "I said to put some fucking clothes on."

"I'm your teammate, not your bitch," Mike glared at him. There was a pause as they stared at each other.

Not the most awkward silence, but dramatic enough until it was broken by Skit's chuckling.

"Damn, you're epic, kid," Skit rolled his eyes, though he wasn't speaking sarcastically. If the rookie was a hard-ass, that's something that appealed to him. That means their team is so badass, even the rookies are badass.

All of a sudden, Mike heard a faint beeping. He wasn't sure if Skit heard it, but instinctively he twitched his ear and looked around.

"What's up?"

"You don't hear that?" Mike gave an indication for Skit to listen harder.

"Oh," his eyes widened as he got up, "God damn it!"

He came back into the room with his grey Holoband, answering so that Mike could hear.

"Team Nimbus," It was the voice of their assigner. Vague and bland. Undescriptive, "We recently got notice of your complete team status and have a mission for you."

"Great," Skit seemed fairly optimistic, "Fill me in."

"There's signs of a mutant genetic engineering process that looks to be completed, and we're going to ask you to take it out, as well as some of the scientists, and retrieve any information on the project. We also suspect that Crow may be in the vicinity."

Crow. Certainly a name to be feared in the tower. The orchestrator of Chaos. The ringleader of all the strange phenomenon that has haunted the Four planet empire since it started. He was human, tall, lanky. He was frail looking, not old, but certainly not young. He was authorative in some way. A quote from a Team Thunder member compared him to Ichabod Crane. Certainly a scientist, certainly dark minded, certainly a Horror icon in his own right.

All of a sudden, Skit looked scared. He had no way of hiding it. His ears and tail drooped as he shook slightly. He slowly fastened the wristband onto his left wrist, then continued speaking.

"Crow is there?" He asked in disbelief, "We... we have two rookies here!"

Mike looked eager as ever to take it on, though, expression the inverse of Skit's, "Don't turn it down!"

"We have no recent record of any problems that could be grounds for not accepting this mission." The assigner spoke.

"Do you have records of our last mission that involved Crow?" Skit was obviously trying to talk him out of it. Mike, however, had a different opinion. He jumped over the couch and ran up to Skit, grabbing his arm.

"We accept!" He shouted into Skit's Holoband. Skit Pulled his hand back, then put it back near his face.

"We wouldn't have taken a refusal, anyway. We need you at ship-out no later than 11:00."

"AM or PM?" Skit played around.

"Military time, Agent Saber."

The call then disconnected.

"Fuck..." Skit started pacing.

"What's wrong?" Mike inquired.

Skit responded by grabbing Mike's shoulders and speaking directly to his face.

"Let me tell you a story, kid." He started, "You see, back when Rix and I met each other, it was in the academy. Now, we hated each other. And we thought we'd never see each other when we got out. But no. We got matched up on the same team. Team Nimbus. Now, you see, we formed an alliance against our two higher-ups in the team, and everything worked out fine for all of us. Sure, the whole team didn't get along well, but we made it through stuff, right? Until one day, when the mission briefing included 'Crow may be directly involved'... Those two higher-ups got so fucked up on that mission and so seriously injured that they had to be taken off the team. So now it's two weeks later..." He let go of Mike and started pacing again as he grabbed at his head and raised his voice, "and they're asking us to go after Crow again!"

Mike stood by in awe, "So... Your last name's Saber?"

"Shut up and get dressed."

"I will when we have to leave."

"Rix!" Skit practically screamed, "Wake up!"

"What?" the racoon moaned back from his room.

"Mission in a half an hour!"

"Fine!" Rix replied, a few minutes later coming out fully clothed and with a can of body-spray and gradually emptying it on himself. Rix was probably the most "average" person on this team. He had the attitude of a frat-boy, and a more laid-back demeanor. He wasn't one to be serious all the time like his team-mate skit was. And if Rix had been called instead of Skit for the mission, Rix would have just sighed and agreed without question. Then he would have told Skit and Skit would have choked him. Also, Being a Racoon, Rix was naturally cunning. Even if it was just making quick-witted jokes on occasion, or more likely being a stealthy scout.

"Why's that kid naked?" He asked Skit as he saw Mike standing around.

"Because I can be," Mike replied.

"Ah, that's cute," Rix sarcastically commented as he went straight for the box of cereal. He scarfed the whole thing down probably faster than Mike did his, then just stood waiting around.

"We're just waiting for the kid in the shower," Skit told him, "Then we can get going."

"You and the Jackal need to get dressed, though," Rix pointed out.

"And I'll do that now," Skit responded, storming off to his room, leaving just Rix and Mike. It was an empty, awkward silence.

"Oh, I know. I can get Danny out of the shower faster," Mike told Rix, running back into his room to get his old laminated Academy ID, then carefully using it to slide into the crack between the door and the frame. He slid it into the slope of the lock, opening it after he had cheated it. "Danny!" he shouted, "We have to go in less than 20 minutes!"

"I'll just get out now..." He heard Danny say as the water shut off. Danny peaked his head through the curtains to look at Mike as he also reached for a towel off of the wall. "How did you unlock the door?"

"The card trick."

When both of them got dressed, They all trekked down to the ship-out station, where they would receive a drop-ship. The port they would have to go to was automatically displayed on their holo-bands. Of course, as huge as the tower was, there was no way they could walk to their station in time. So, for agents convenience, there was a cart station at the entrance, where a team would board a relatively small box, elevator like, which would take them to their station. It's method, though, wasn't ordinary.

The four of them walked into the box, Mike and Danny amazed by the sight of all the moving vehicles and people in this enormous complex.

Rix waved his Holo-band in front of a sensor, waiting for response. When he didn't get one, he tried again. No response. Frustratingly, he tried once more. This time, before he could shout any obscenities, Skit waved his in front of the sensor. The It responded with audio.

"Agent S. Saber. Team Nimbus. Is this correct?"

"Affirmative."

"Departure in approximately four minutes." It spoke as it shot up to the ceiling, an incredibly high ceiling. Mike and Danny were in complete awe as the sight of the ground disappeared from them. They all felt a bump when the box hooked onto the ceiling, then whipped out at incredible speeds, turning twice, then docking in a chute-structure, lowering much slower than it had shot up before. When it touched ground, the inner computer spoke once more. "Good luck with Crow."

They met a staff person standing by their ride, who gave them an extra briefing.

"Saber, Carnett, Gantroy, and Kanapima?"

"That's all of us," Rix answered.

The staff touched around her tablet, while still speaking to the team. "I have a map on your Holo-band of the building you are infiltrating. It is a large building in the middle of a popular urban center. Actually a headquarters for a cosmetic company. Seyoka, Watomica, Mobius."

"Any planned out course of action?"

"That's for you to decide. Your mission is to kill the mutant and retrieve information from their research."

Without another word, all four of them boarded and waited for the drop-ship to start. They had time to converse.

"I was wondering," Danny asked as he fiddled with the holographic cube emanating from his wristband"Why do they call it a Holoband?"

"Agh, I memorized it," Rix responded, searching his memory, "It's just like the first and last part of... Holographic Interactive Multidimensional Communication and Computation Wristband."

"Him-C-C-W is to awkward to say," Skit added, then pulling up his map, "Better conversation, does anyone have a fucking plan?"

"Wing it?" Rix suggested.

"After Crow?" They had a life or death mission on their hands. Skit didn't want to joke around.

"Yeah, so winging it would be appropriate," Unfortunately for Skit, That's exactly what Rix was doing.

Gantroy noticed another fault.

"Hey Guys," He caught attention, "Where's our weapons?"

"Look under your seat," Rix pointed out.

Under every seat of a drop-ship was a drawer fitted with load-out equipment. Pretty much any essential weapons that were needed on a mission were given to the agents on the drop-ship. In this case, they got handguns with adequate ammunition, a grenade each, and Skit got an EMP device. These varied not only by mission, but by crew. For instance, if one member of a crew was known to own expensive rifles of their own, it was a tower tradition to leave them maybe just a box of ammo and a fortune cookie. For new agents or those that didn't really excel at anything, they were usually left with the generic handguns and such.

"Oh, so Skit is the only one that gets something extra?" Rix complained.

"I got more kills than you last time," Skit smirked, "You still gotta prove you're not a rookie, Rix."

"The android just crushed everyone left and right last time, and Tanaka used his psycho powers the whole time. I didn't get a shot at anyone!"

"You had a psychokinetic on your team?" Gantroy loved the idea of psychokinetic fighting, but knew himself he was to impure and distractible to ever try it out.

They told the drop ship pilot to cloak and drop them off on the roof. There, they'd have the classic entrance from an air vent shaft from the roof. Skit seemed to know the map, he had studied it on their short drop-ship ride, and followed where he was the entire time. He had gotten them to bust out into a storage room, another classic.

"You two," Skit told the rookies, now taking a leader position, "Guard the doors."

As commanded, they stood flat on either side of the closed door. Ears pressed against the wall, Mike blankly staring into Danny's face, Danny staring into his. Perfectly still. Their focus on sensitivity of their senses.

Rix did another procedure, he scanned the room for cameras. He had a keen eye for small details, even holes in the wall that could have the little speckle of a lens behind them.

Skit, however, slowly ruffled through the boxes, trying to find anything at all that could give them a lead or aid them. Nothing useful. Most of it was spare electronic parts and some light-bulbs. He then pulled up his map and it locked on what room they were in.

"Looks like our target," He whispered quietly, "Is... closer than I thought."

"What's the catch?" Rix asked him back.

"A lot of open spaces and most likely a lot of guards... And if they decide to let the mutant out... that, too."

Skit stared into his map a bit longer, going through situations in his head. He couldn't find one he was happy with. In fact, he had to sacrifice something, "No way in hell are we going after Crow. We can't. We can kill the mutant and get the data out safe. Or, we could spend more and more time navigating until we find Crow. We can't do both."

When Skit had settled on one plan he didn't like, which involved a lot of tension and quickness and luck, they opened the door and scanned for guards, none yet. They all kept their guns concealed in case they could just pass themselves off as wandering around the building, as it was a make-up headquarters after all. The thought lingered on all of them at some point, why would a cosmetics company need to build a mutant? None of them asked it, however.

"You four!" a middle-aged rabbit in white called out, "This area is restricted!"

"Oh, we're sorry," Rix had an explanation, "We kind of walked in off of the street to use the bathroom, and we thought the sign was pointing one way... and we kinda just kept walking until we got lost."

"I'll lead you back to the entrance," He sighed as he offered. The undercover team accepted, and let him walk through the halls.

"So, what's with the white suit?" Skit asked. His tone might have been genuinely curious, but the rabbit looked a bit intimidated. It must have been his dark color and gothic look.

"Oh... Just experimentation. We've been testing... various chemicals to see how they interact with various subspecies' fur." The answer came out nervous.

"Hm, well, I guess this place isn't interesting enough to give tours, huh?" Mike chimed in. He noticed they were approaching the storage room they entered from.

"Oh, tours! Oh no, no one would ever want to-"

The statement was interrupted by asphyxiation, specifically Skit grabbing him in the throat and pushing him through the doors of the storage room. He let go, noticing some slowly bleeding claw marks on the rabbit's neck. Mike and Danny instinctively checked for any radios or communication devices on him, like in their training. Danny found a radio and turned it off right away. The rabbit was shoved against a wall and he slid down, gasping for air. Skit kneeled down to get to his level.

"No one would want to take tours to see the mutant, would they?" Skit fiercely spit words into his face, "would they?"

"Mutant?" The rabbit was a horrible actor as it tried to be flabbergasted, still gasping for air, "What would Fountain of Youth cosmetics want with a mutant?"

"That's what we're here to find out," Skit kept his sharp tone, "You gonna talk? We already got some intel from the Tower."

"A god damn tower team... I knew it! I knew-" Another statement interrupted by the grab of the neck.

"Keep quiet or we'll kill you faster." Skit threatened through his teeth.

"Kill me? The worker rasped out, "That's why they hire the young ones at the tower. They don't have sympathy for the people with families and kids. They don't know anything about life!"

"Don't you dare talk shit to the guys with the guns!" Skit tried a threat. Oddly, though, something that rabbit said stuck a chord with Mike. He himself joined the tower because his life was horrible... And he had to say something to this arrogant fool.

"You don't know anything about our lives, rabbit," Mike kneeled down and spat his anger out at the lab worker, "Want to know a little about me?" He didn't wait for an answer, however, "My parents are perfectionists. They always said they were. They came to an English speaking country knowing barely any English. We moved into the only semi-decent house in some slums. I went to a school filled with cats." Cats. Specifically the fat cats. The rich ones. The feline supremacists. "You can imagine the Wolves, the Foxes, the reptiles, the rodents... the minorities getting pushed around by violent gang-like cats. Of course, I was pushed by my foreign parents to be the best of a best, so I could make a name for myself. I had a perfect grades before I dropped out and lived on the street for a few years. Bouncing from house to house, hiding... Stealing from the rich, treating myself... And that's why I signed up for the tower. Sick of it. You know what? You probably grew up in a rich neighborhood, parents paying you through school, getting along with everyone..."

The rabbit was silent.

"Don't talk shit about someone you don't know anything about, rabbit," Gantroy had made his case.

"If anything," The rabbit quickly switched to begging, "I can tell you anything, just don't kill me!"

"We'll use you for info," Skit decided in an instant, sneering into his face. He didn't move at all, but still managed to change the direction of his words to his team, "Tie him up."

Conveniently, there was some rope and some cable in the scattered boxes of that room. Their training taught them how to restrain people easily.

With that, they moved on, but a bit quicker, back to square one, it seemed.

The hallways were labyrinthine, and very creepy. The lights were bright. The walls were mostly bare. It seemed surreal. Even the blandly grey walls of some of the tower's hallways seemed more inviting than this place. Even the air seemed sharp. Lifeless... Still. Nothing but low, cracking sounds from machines in various rooms.... That sound, and their footsteps as well.

Arriving at what looked to be a laboratory area, they were immediately held up at an entrance.

"You must be the agents the boss told us about," A human in a lab-coat stood by the door, in anticipation. Well, fuck. They've been caught. So much for stealth. "It looks like... you reached your target." The whole team had to look up a bit to meet him eye to eye.

"What are you saying?" Skit was the first to speak up... Their answer was not in the form of words, but rather in the form of a few more lab workers pulling them inside. The door was slammed and they were thrown into a pile in the middle of the equally as creepy white room. Strangely, though, this room was large and very open for a laboratory.

By the time the four scrambled to their feet, they heard more slamming doors... And they were suddenly alone. Confident, until the Intercom boomed.

"Well, you agents..." The voice did not seem familiar to any of them... could it have been Crow? Maybe another ring-master of the laboratory operations? "You must be pretty professional for Owwer to put you up against us." It boomed again...

Skit didn't want to tell them they were probably the worst, most inexperienced people for this job... He just felt like glaring around and looking intimidating.

"Great training for our new beast," The voice said before bursting into mad laughter. Suddenly, they were faced with a door splitting open sideways on the part of the room they were facing. Skit checked his map quick for escape routes... No use trying though, he thought they were for sure dead before they could do anything. He was suddenly frozen after he came to the realization there wasn't much they could do. He just kept staring into his map. When the team saw their supposed leader was out of it... An unlikely member took charge, and just noticing a high window in which a silhouette was speaking into a microphone.

"The mutant we came to kill?" Mike stepped forward and glared into the distant window shouting, his young voice still probably more intimidating than Skit could have managed, "You're bringing it right to us? Thanks for doing our job!"

"Enough petty taunts!" The speakers crackled as the voice spoke to loud for them to handle, "There's no chance of you surviving this!"

They heard a tumbling sound, a rolling. Something approaching through a wall. It was followed by the mechanical screech of one of the doors in a corner, opening to reveal a huge glass tank containing the Mutant, alive and in motion, within the liquid. The four watched in awe as this artificial birth process unfolded... two of the workers smashing the glass with baseball bats, forming cracks that ran through and started leaking fluid. As the glass fully broke, the monstrous freak scrambled around on the floor, writhing as it vomited and coughed up the fluid in the tank. It wasn't long before the horrible creature was helped up by the two lab workers, fully alive, and seemingly ready to kill. It stared at the four agents from across the room, and they all stared back in mixed feelings of awe, horror, nervousness, and for one of them, excitement.

The creature could only be described as a freak combination of a bulldog and a shark, although it was taller than even the humans holding it back. Its eyes were a mixed red and yellow, looking ready to burst with blood. Its skin, bare skin, was jet black, and now dripping with the slightly viscous fluid that still stuck from its containment.

"Damn..." THe only word that escaped Rix's mouth, or any of theirs at all. Spoken in a blank tone, could have only been in hysterical amazement and fear.

"I guess it's ready now!" The intercom showed excitement. Without any further cues, the workers let go of the beast and watched it snarl. They quickly ran away through the door as the team backed up into a corner.

"I'm out of Ideas..." Skit told them, "I never even had any, so..."

It charged. Ridiculously fast, and straight for them. They all had the reaction time to dodge. Skit just barely, laying on the floor and scrambling to get up. Not fast enough to completely get away, however. The beast picked him up by his shirt and threw him against the wall. The other three grouped up and ran to another corner.

"We're dead," Rix was sure as he backed up to the wall.

"Mike," Danny took his turn, "before we die, there's something I've wanted to-"

"Shoot it!" Mike quickly blurted out, only thinking of seizing the moment the beast was distracted. it All three of them dropped their thoughts and shot a few times. The bullets hit... but the creature barely bled, and only seemed angrier.

"Fuck..." Mike's reaction.

They saw Skit get up slowly from behind the creature as it was set to charge. He pulled out his single grenade, rolled it under the monster, and dashed to the other side of the room. That blow managed to slam the creature against the wall and scratch it with shrapnel, but didn't do much. This time it frantically charged, blindly, and right at Mike. Mike, however, being one with reflexes, didn't manage to roll, but instead stepped just far enough out of the way to make the monster crash. Suddenly, he was grabbing the bull by the horns and taking this into his own hands. He climbed onto the back of the monster and held his handgun directly to its skin, firing a few shots in random places around its back. It was showing signs of pain now. Rix decided to do the same, running right up to the side and shoving the barrel of his gun into its skin, firing a few shots into its leg. Now, there was blood. It threw both of them off and charged for Danny now, limping as it butted him to the ground, causing him to slide before he He landed on his back, now looking up, face to face with the beast.

Its eyes seemed closer to popping than ever... but also looked as violent as could be. Danny wanted to shoot it, but knew it would just maul him. The horror increased as it opened its mouth, as if ready to bite him... then... an extremely lucky shot from another corner. Skit had managed an accurate shot right to the beasts left eye. As it roared its sick, blood-curdling roar, Danny delivered a final blow, shooting the rest of his clip into the beasts open mouth, bullets cracking open its skull as they went in. To make sure it stayed dead, he watched as it fell and tossed his own grenade into its mouth, running toward Skit and diving away from the blast. The four grouped up in the middle again, after the smoke had cleared.

"Wow, Gantroy," Skit spoke, admiringly, "You kind of stepped up a bit there..."

"You're the one that shot it in the eye Skit," Mike modestly turned it back on him, "By the way, I'm gonna remember that. Whenever facing some freak monster... go for the eyes."

"And this guy," Rix playfully shoved Danny, "Blew its fucking head off..."

"NO!" The voice on the intercom had suddenly come back, "This did not just happen! You're all going to pay for destroying a product of millions of Krystalics and decades of work!" This voice was not happy. This voice was menacing. This voice was the most angry they had ever heard. Even angrier than any of Mike's teachers.

Suddenly, there were three doors opening... with the tips of guns emerging first, a few seconds later revealing many, many guards pouring in. Most just looked like lab workers... given rifles.

Skit, first, checked his map... Then got literally pulled by Mike to a door at their nearest corner. Mike quickly got it to open by shooting the control panel, then closing it by bashing a lock button on the other side. Skit glanced back at his map.

"Whoa... you just set us right on the track to the back door of this place," He found that there was a clear shot out where they could be safe from the workers. This hallway even looked clear so far. They turned a corner and heard the door they had just closed slide open. That was their cue to get the fuck moving. They ran, following Skit's directions on where to turn until they came to a long, large hallway. It was completely barren, but also looked in slight disrepair.

"This can't be that easy," Rix noted that usually things got progressively harder when trying to escape.

Skit tried his part by locking an EMP device onto the door they had just passed through. That was bound to buy them time. They'd have to use brute force to blast through a blast door. Rix decided to stay just around the corner of that door, in case they started to get through, he could warn them. When the other three got to the end of the hallway... the discovery was not that pleasant.

"This door is bricked off," Skit announced, "This isn't a fucking door. We're cornered now." Skit sank into one of the walls next to the door, leaning, then sliding down. "They're going to come and kill us now."

Mike was too busy searching along walls for anything at all. The most he found was a crack in the wall... but to him, that meant something. He stared at it curiously as he heard the banging on the blast doors echoing through the stark hallway. He got out his handgun and begun beating at the crack. With little effort, It cracked more. A few more whacks and a chunk fell out of the wall.

"I have the craziest Idea!" He shouted to everyone, "We take out the wall before they can take out the door... then we can get out by just busting the building."

"That can't work!" Skit was a bit pessimistic, "Don't waste time doing that. Think of something else."

"I'm pretty sure I can do it!" He banged at the weak wall material with his gun. He ended up chipping off so much it exposed a type of grid on an I-beam that was used to get a grip on the wall. That grid also made a good foot-hold. He quickly was able to smash enough away of that weak wall to give him a grip to take it even higher. it may have only been five minutes tops, with both Skit and Danny watching him, amazed, that he carved himself a ladder to the ceiling. There wasn't an air vent he could get to, however. He was able to pop open a thin panel on the ceiling and look over the wall he had just broken through. It had turned out... the beam was actually hollow on the inside. He though for a second... it would make sense, because hollow materials can take compression forces easier. But what was there pushing down on it?

"Oh, shit!" Mike's thoughts were interrupted by Rix's shouting, "Shit!" He heard running footsteps and a huge bang. Rix was turning the corner, running down the long hallway as fast as he could. And as soon as he knew the guards had gotten through, Mike knew it was time to do something drastic. He needed to close off those guards from them in some way that was just more huge.

"Guys!" Mike shouted, "Get all the way to the wall!"

"Wait!" Rix wasn't even near where the rest of them were.

Then Mike saw the first of a flood of guards... then saw they were already firing. There was no time left. He tossed a grenade down into the beam-tube, and watched it shatter the bottom layer of the beam, leading it to scrape against the awkward walls, Mike leaned into the hallway to bend it. There was nothing to bend, however. The tube had completely detached itself, and it pulled out a web of supports for whatever material the wall was made out of. This sent a good half of that wall in the hallway tumbling down, then caused the ceiling to fall, lights falling and bulbs breaking. Mike jumped off when he realized when the momentum was enough.

In the flash it took to bring the hallway crashing down, and crushing all of the guards, no one had realized that Rix was halfway caught under the rubble until his shouting became audible.

"Agh! My Legs! Damn it!"

However... they could see he was visible on their side of the rubble... and he was still the only voice they heard. Skit looked up through the broken ceiling and saw sunlight shining through. They could get our if they just climbed the rubble.

"Hey Danny," Mike made sure to get something in as he tried to make the situation seem as normal as possible, "You were going to say something back when we were fighting the monster?"

"Oh, yeah," Danny looked hesitant, embarrassed, "I... Forgot what I was going to say, sorry." A great coverup.

"Was it just about that mutant?"

"Yeah..." He accepted Mike's own suggestion.

"Shut up, you two," Skit shouted at them as he kneeled down next to Rix' protruding torso, "And call for evacuation."